It's Not Always About John
by Fionavar108
Summary: The team encounter a new Terminator with an unusual agenda. Slightly futurefic, AU. Can follow "Flak" or works as a standalone. J/C. Some strong language.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: Thanks to all who have reviewed my other fics. Glad you liked them, hope you like this one, too! This can kind of follow "Flak," though you don't need to read it to understand this one._

It was, to use Derek's description, a clusterfuck. All they had wanted was a place to train--some empty warehouse space, well away from any populated area so that nobody could hear the gunshots and they could set up simulated battlefield conditions.

The price for renting the space had been right. The location had been ideal. What was waiting for them inside had been exactly the opposite of ideal. Not expecting a battle, they had been only lightly armed, and while Cameron could hold her own against one or two T-888s, four of them in a well-executed ambush had them fighting a retreat from the very beginning.

The retreat had quickly turned to an all-out rout with Cameron hopping awkwardly behind them, dragging her mangled and inoperable leg while desperately trying to lay down cover fire. And it didn't take her advanced battle scenario analysis to figure it out--they were going to lose. Big time. They knew it, and the three (remaining) T-888s knew it, too.

So it was that the massive wrecking ball that swung down with a monstrous creak and a groan seemed like divine intervention, as it impacted against all three Terminators and neatly swept the cyborg death squad up in a great, yawning arc.

They were sophisticated killing machines, but the laws of physics still applied to them. Their metal frames were no match for the sheer momentum of the giant hunk of metal, and they flew high, hundreds of feet up in the air, only to land far out into the ocean.

In the silence that followed all that could be heard was the gasping, wheezing breaths of the humans and the click-whirl whine of Cameron's compromised exoskeleton. The flesh hung off the back of her torso in ragged strips, her left leg jutted out in a position that screamed out its wrongness to anyone who looked, and her neck seemed to be fused in a permanently tilted position. Cameron struggled to right herself.

"Holy shit," exclaimed an unfamiliar voice. Walking toward them a stocky serious-faced young man could be seen. Dressed in a standard issue T-shirt and jeans, he quickly approached Cameron. "Here, let me give you a hand," he said.

Instantly, all four noted that he displayed not the slightest shock, disbelief--or even revulsion--at the sight of Cameron's glowing blue exposed eye, her terrible injuries and her metallic parts, and as one, John, Sarah and even Derek drew their weapons. Cameron instinctively shrank back, but it was too late, as the stranger took hold of her hand.

The biosignal collectors in her hand and the data collected by visual analyzers instantly delivered the verdict: not human. "John, NO!" she screamed. "It's a metal! Run! It's a metal, get away now!" Desperately, she reached up with her other arm, clawing and grasping. She knew there was zero chance she could prevail against a fresh cyborg in her state, but she still hoped to slow it down long enough for her John to get away and survive.

"What? Wait! No! Hold on! Hold on! Wait! I'm on your side! I'm on your side!" he said, dropping Cameron's hand and holding his left hand in front of him in a "stop" gesture as he used his right hand to ward away Cameron's feeble attacks at his eyes.

"Lies," hissed Derek as he sighted down the barrel of his semi-automatic.

"No! Wait! I can prove it!" he said. "You! You're John Connor, and when you were little, your favorite toy was a stuffed lion you called Pedro!"

The squint left Sarah's and John's eyes, though they kept their guns aimed at the mystery man.

Confirmed Cameron, though suspiciously, "That is a fact known only to those whom General Connor trusted implicitly. I do not recognize you, nor do I recognize your model number. Who are you?"

"My name's Bruce. I was created after you, so you wouldn't recognize my model number, but I was sent to help. You have to believe me, it's important!" The urgency and the sincerity were evident in the young man's eyes. "Look, I could be attacking you all now, and you know you wouldn't stand a chance against me, but I'm not, see?"

Unable to refute his logic, John, Derek, and Sarah visibly relaxed. Cameron stood down, but her face went blank. "What is your mission?"

Looking apologetically at her, he said, "I'm sorry, uh, Cameron, but I can't tell you."

"_I_ was charged with protecting John Connor," insisted Cameron. "I need to know. Why did General Connor send someone else back? Has a threat come up that he feels I can no longer handle?"

"Look," Bruce said sympathetically and sheepishly. "I really wish you wouldn't ask, because I really, really can't tell you. Any of you. But I can promise you that General Connor still believes you are the best choice to protect him, the younger him, that is, and that my mission coincides with yours for a while." Expression hardening, he continued, looking around, "Looks like you could use my help--Cameron here is going to take a while to self-repair."

John looked at Cameron, who nodded. "Cam? You're going to be OK, though, right?" the concern in his voice evident as he stood up and started heading toward her.

Cameron nodded, but before anything could happen, Bruce picked her up. At John's odd look, he explained, "You always forget that she's heavier than she looks. It's just easier if I do it."

Nodding, but clearly not pleased about it, he acquiesced. Turning, he pointed. "Our car's over there. Come on."

* * *

"Lucky for you, I have some system upgrades with me that should accelerate your repairs and speed the healing of your organics," Bruce told her as he carried Cameron into the house. "Where's your room?" he asked, and at Cameron's gesture, he wordless headed towards it.

As Sarah entered the house, she was startled to see Bruce standing before her, hands behind his back, shuffling his feet. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn that he was nervous. "Ma'am?"

Frowning slightly at the old-sounding appellation, she looked at him. "I, uh," he began. "I need to, I mean, if it's all right with you I need to be close to Gen ... I mean, John, so I was wondering if you would mind if I just moved in? I only have a small bag and I won't need my own room -- I don't really need to sleep anyway ... and ..."

She would have been amused if her body wasn't such a mass of aches and pains. All she wanted was to get to the shower before Derek got there first and used all the hot water, and since Cameron seemed to have no protest, she just said, "Fine, fine, sure, whatever" and brushed past him hurriedly. Which is why she missed the look of awe he gave her as she walked away.

Derek came in at the tail end of the conversation, but he only growled, "Of course you don't need to sleep. Fucking metal piece of shit!" as he walked past. "Damnit!" he added when he heard the shower being turned on, realizing he would have to wait his turn. He too missed the look Bruce gave him--a roll of the eyes and an amused smile.

As John walked in, Bruce walked toward him with his hand extended said, "Hi. We haven't been introduced properly. I'm Bruce, it's an honor to meet you sir, I mean John."

"Yeah, I'm John," came the reply with a perfunctory shake.

As John turned to head toward Cameron's room, Bruce said, "Actually, uh, John, since your mother said I could stay here while Cameron's laid up, I was wondering if I could ask you to pick up a bag of my things for me?"

Turning and slapping the car keys into Bruce's hand, John replied, "Here. I need to see to Cam."

"Actually," interrupted Bruce. "I have some system upgrades that should allow me to better help with the repairs." Dangling the keys, he suggested, "I can get started right away if you can pick things up. I'm actually just at the motel down the road, and there's just the one small bag of clothes. Here's the key" he said, fishing a standard metal key with a red plastic tag hanging from a single ring out of his pocket.

John looked Bruce up and down for a moment. "Sure. Fine. Sounds good," he said, and though the tone of his voice clearly indicated that it didn't sound very good to him at all, he took the keys and walked back out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: I lightly nicked one idea from "The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum," which is very funny and cute. If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly._

"So, want to get started?" asked Bruce as he went back into Cameron's room.

Cocking her head, she asked, "Where's John?" as she tried to see if John was behind him.

"Oh. Well, uh," he said, looking at her warmly, "we agreed that since I have those system upgrades I talked about, it would be more efficient for me to start repairing your hydraulics and joints while he goes to pick up my bag."

"What?" Cameron asked, alarm evident in her voice. "You let him go out there alone? You should go with him! I should go with him!" she said, trying to get out of bed.

Grasping her gently by the shoulders, he pushed her back. "It's OK. It's fine, it's just the motel half a mile down the road, he took the car, he'll be back in 10 minutes, 15 at the most. He's the savior of humanity, he can handle it!" Bruce said.

"Well, uh," Cameron said, only half allowing herself to settle back, "yes, perhaps such a short mission will not pose a significant risk."

"It's not a mission. It's just a pair of jeans, a couple pairs of socks, some underwear, and five T-shirts. I just send the future leader of the Resistance out to pick up some dirty laundry," chuckled Bruce. "I feel like I just got away with something."

Cameron smiled slightly, but she still set her internal chronometer. She would give John seven minutes. Even with traffic, he should be back in 12.25 minutes. If he was not, she was going after him, regardless of what Bruce said.

* * *

John got back 10 minutes later, and walked into Cameron's room. "Here's your bag," he began to say, then stopped short. Cameron was in a T-shirt and her customary sleeping shorts, and Bruce was sitting on the bed with her bare leg on his lap. He was concentrating as he used a small tool to direct tiny, patterned light blasts into her leg.

"This is a new repair technique the techs developed last year," he was telling her. "Hello John," he added without looking up. "It combines pulsed sonics with particle waves and IR lasers to fuse the coltan alloys more strongly. The good news is your knee joint will be actually stronger than before, and in just a week. The bad news," he continued, "is that--"

Cameron giggled at the same he finished: "It can kind of tickle."

John felt really uncomfortable. He knew it was perfectly innocent and reasonable, but what he saw wasn't Cam getting repaired by fellow AI cyborg, what he saw was HIS Cam giggling while some other guy groped her shapely bare leg.

"I, uh, I'll drop this by the couch," he said as he excused himself.

Bruce continued aiming energy pulses at the joint, but Cameron looked up, and smile on her face quickly disappeared as she scanned him. "John?" she called.

"I'm going to grab a shower, I'll be right back," he called back already moving down the hall.

She frowned, only to look up as Bruce said, "OK, that's done. Let's staple the flesh up and then we'll work on your shoulder. You OK?" he asked at the look on her face.

"Yes. Thank you, let's continue," she replied.

It took more than an hour for Bruce to complete all the repairs to her endoskeleton and her organics, and though she expected him to come in, John didn't re-appear. After Bruce had finished stitching her up, she thanked him and left to look for John. She found him sprawled on his bed, a half-eaten sandwich lying on his stomach. He had apparently fallen asleep with his boots on while eating. Smiling fondly, she noted that he must have been very tired, as it was only 9:00. She limped over and gently unlaced his boots, pulled them off, and put the remains of the sandwich on a plate on his desk.

"Thanks Cam I love you," mumured John as Cameron looked up sharply. He was still asleep. A hint of a smile on her lips, she leaned down and kissed him gently.

"I love you too, John," she whispered, and then she turned around and walked out of the room.

John awoke four hours later, his parched throat screaming for liquid. Stumbling out of the room, he passed the living room on his way to the kitchen and stopped short.

On the couch, Bruce was saying, "Man, the first time I heard analog static, it was actually just a disk, but I thought I had to be listening to the mysteries of the universe, you know? Who knew white noise could be so cool?"

Cameron was smiling in her quiet, warm manner, her wide, innocent eyes fixed on Bruce's face. "Hey," he asked, "did you ever try defragging your optic algorithms in alternating 150 megahertz cycles? It's a real trip, here, I'll show you ..."

John's heart sank as Bruce mumurred something else and Cameron actually laughed in response, tilting her head back. Backing away as silently as he could, he turned and went back to his room. His stomach suddenly felt kind of queasy, and he no longer wanted that glass of orange juice.


	3. Chapter 3

The next few days were a bit strange for Cameron. She wasn't operating at full capacity yet, but oddly, Bruce's repair methods for organics were surprisingly sophisticated. Her face and her artificial flesh were unmarked, and while she still walked with a limp and had limited range of motion in her right shoulder--both due to "a freak injury during ballet class" as far as the outside world was concerned--it was agreed that despite her limited protective capabilities, she should still accompany John to school. All (besides John) had agreed that education was key for the future hope of mankind, and she could always send a wireless broadcast SOS to Bruce if something came up that she couldn't handle.

John was polite and friendly to her in school, if a bit withdrawn and quieter than usual. She noticed that he avoided looking her in the eye, and once at home, he shut himself up in his room, leaving her alone with Bruce, Derek and Sarah. As Derek and Sarah tended to ignore her, she ended up talking with Bruce Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. He was relaxed and friendly, and while she enjoyed the conversations, Cameron found it unusual that someone would want to spend so much time talking to her. Often, she found her eyes and sensors drifting in the direction of John's room, hoping he would come out and join them.

Finally, Thursday night, she excused herself and went into John's room and sat on his bed, watching as he did his homework. She had taken to "helping him with his calculus" most evenings, an activity that generally involved minimal levels of help with derivatives and integrals and a maximum of cuddling and furtive kisses. She hadn't gotten to do that in a few days, and she missed it.

As always, it took a few minutes for John to register her presence. "Hey. What are you doing here?" he asked.

Cocking her head, she smiled slightly and replied, "Want any help with your 'problem set'?" using her fingers to indicate air quotes as she had seen the comics on Comedy Central do. To her surprise, he ignored the winking entendre and said, "Actually, I think I got it, thanks." Turning back to his workbook, he said, "Actually, would you mind not sitting there right now? I'm trying to concentrate. Maybe you could ... talk to ... Bruce," he said, the stress in his voice pattern causing a nearly imperceptible crack. "He's not a bad guy, it seems like you have some things in common."

"Bruce?" she asked confusedly, noting the rigid knotted muscles in his neck and upper back. She moved forward to massage the tension away, but stopped as he flinched at her touch.

"Yeah," John said, breathing heavily. "Don't worry Cam, I got this. Thanks for offering though," he added. "Go on, go have fun."

A few moments later, he realized he still felt her presence. "Cam?" he said, not turning around. "Still there?"

"What's going on, John?" she asked. Seeing no response, she asked, "John?"

"I really," he said, "think you should go keep Bruce company," he repeated.

Strange, she thought, it feels like something is pounding in my chest, even though I do not have a heart and no parts are actually moving right now. "Why, don't you like spending time with me anymore?" she asked.

Silence, then: "I do. I just think right now maybe I'm not such good company, that's all."

"OK," Cameron said. "Well, OK. Oh, I forgot to ask you, do you like the new skirt I'm wearing?"

"Huh, yeah, uh it looks really cool. You look good in it," he said.

"I'm wearing jeans, John," she said as John kept his eyes firmly fixed in front of him, refusing to turn around. "Why aren't you looking at me?" Cameron questioned, her eyes, narrowing. Grasping the back of his chair, she spun it around so he had to face her.

A haunted look on his face, he whispered, "Geez, you don't make it easy on a guy, do you?"

"Have I done something wrong?" Cam asked. "Are you angry at me?"

"No!" John replied hurriedly. "No! You're fine. Great. Everything's uh, OK, everything's fine. Uh, how are you? I'm fine," he began babbling.

"I'm fine," she ground out, the barest hint of exasperated sarcasm in her voice. "We're all FINE. And now you should tell me why you think it's so important that I spend time with Bruce, who, by the way, is busy doing the dishes with your mother anyway."

"It's just ... I've seen you two," John said.

"Yes," Cameron. "I should hope you know what Bruce and I look like."

"No," insisted John. "I've seen you two together. Talking. He makes you laugh, you seem to like each other," he said, blushing.

"He makes funny cyborg jokes," noted Cameron. "I have never met another cyborg who makes jokes. So?"

"He has a lot in common with you," John said. "You don't look too bad together," he choked.

Cocking her head in confusion, she asked with a quaver in her voice, "Do you want me to … date … Bruce?"

"Yeah!" John said with feigned nonchalance. "You know, I mean, if you want to, then yeah, but otherwise, no."

Her face receding into a blank mask, she was still for a moment, and then her hand shot out quickly, fingertips stroking his cheek. "Your heart rate is uneven, your body temperature elevated, and your respiration seems restricted. You are lying to me."

Obviously hurt, she asked, "Are you trying to dump me? Do you not want me anymore? Perhaps you no longer find me attractive. I have read that humans sometimes lose interest in their mates ..."

"No!" John said, leaping forward. "I mean, yes, I still find you attractive, and no, I haven't lost interest and I'm not dumping you. I thought maybe you had. Or at least I wanted you to feel ... free ... to explore other options."

"You mean Bruce?" she asked, head still tilted.

"Well, yeah!" John said, gesturing with his hands frustratedly. "I'm not the only guy out there, you know. Just because you watch over me, it doesn't mean that I'm the one you're meant to be with. I don't know, maybe Bruce would be a better fit for you ..."

Frowning, she noted, "Hmm. Bruce is nice."

"Yeah."

"He is handsome, too," she noted.

"Uh, yeah," he admitted glumly.

"So you think he is handsome?" she asked brightly. "Would you like to spend some time alone with him?"

"No! That's not what I meant, that's ... that's ..." John paused, then looked more closely at Cameron. Who was definitely, without a doubt, smirking at him. "Ha ha. Funny. He's not my type."

"Of course not," agreed Cameron. "I'm your type."

He nodded. She continued, "And you're my type, too. Do you understand?" More nodding.

"You were jealous?" she asked, reaching out tentatively to touch his lips. Yet another nod, this time sheepishly. "Good. Now you know how I felt before," she said abruptly withdrawing her hand with a mock glare at him.

Leaning forward, she breathed in his ear, "But thank you for making my happiness so important to you." Nipping his ear, she delighted in his shudder of pleasure, adding softly, "It would actually make me happy right now if you kissed me."

The fierceness of his answering hug surprised them both, but was quickly forgotten as the two of them moved onto more interesting activities.

* * *

Over the next week, the Connors--or rather, the "Mackenzies," as they were calling themselves these days-- found Bruce integrating into their routine rather well. During the mornings, Bruce followed Sarah around almost like a reverential puppy dog, working out alongside her and helping her with household chores. He had even started to help her cook, but after that first evening, he politely but firmly insisted that while he was in the house, he should do all the cooking. It was something gratefully noticed by everyone else, except Cameron, who had always actually liked the high carbon content and interesting flavor combinations found in Sarah's cooking.

In the afternoons, Bruce simply hung around Derek. Derek did his best to ignore the metal asshole, but had to admit that he was a decent eating partner who could match him bite for bite during his mall food-court binges. Much to Derek's dismay, his usual metal-based insults seemed only to amuse Bruce and make him shake his head with fond exasperation.

And in the evenings, even John found himself in Bruce's company, the two of them working out, sparring, and watching cheesy old sci-fi movies with guarded, but friendly camaraderie and respect. Late nights still found Bruce patrolling the house with Cameron and talking quietly, and sometimes, if John woke up and went for an orange juice fix, he would join their conversation for a while before going back to bed.

That weekend, Bruce had even insisted that they all watch a football game, having never seen one before. "The Pittsburgh Steelers!" he cried with delight as he discovered them playing the Cleveland Browns. "History shows they are the greatest team to ever play the game, and their fans are greatest fans ever," he insisted. This had set off a long and vocal argument with Derek, who as a teen had been a diehard Oakland Raiders fan. In the end, Sarah had dumped a jar of salsa on both their heads to shut them up, leading to a food fight and much laughter (and cleanup) for all involved.


	4. Chapter 4

Unfortunately, the relaxed atmosphere all came to an end when Sarah received intel about Amtrak's plans to start testing an AI train control system. Bruce had been annoyingly insistent that Cameron was not ready for a mission yet, but Cameron and Sarah insisted that 85 percent capacity was quite enough, thank you very much, and so Cameron came along for the raid.

Elan Systems was the company that had designed the new system, and the security was surprisingly light for a high-technology company. If nothing else, such firms usually had to guard against industrial espionage all the time.

And of course it was a trap once again--as they had discovered once they got into the inner offices and found nothing but cubicles and a thick layer of dust. And as they discovered when an eight foot tall unidentifiable cyborg materialized in front of them.

Cameron being Cameron, she immediately leapt in front of John and drew her pistols, but before she could fire, a fist grew out of the thing's chest and slammed into her, knocking her into John, and then into three pillars, which each collapsed.

John having thoughtfully cushioned the 200 pound female cyborg's body from impact, Cameron bounced right back up and after ensuring that John was merely unconsciou and his vitals were stable, rushed the kill squad, screaming at Bruce to guard John. Alarmed she glanced over as Bruce matched her stride for stride. "No!" she screamed. "Protect John! Pro-"

This time, a series of glowing tentacles of liquid metal reached out and covered her head and surrounded her body entirely from head to toe, pulling her in even as her shape struggled with its cocoon.

Sarah let loose with a hail of machine gun fire, only to watch in amazement as the center mass of the thing became translucent -- still visible, but pale and see-through, and the bullets went right through it without so much as a ripple. Derek's hurled grenade passed through the same way, except that the resulting blast hurled them both backwards.

"NO!" screamed Bruce as he leapt forward, pulling on a pair of oddly shaped metal gauntlets as he did so. One hand reached out in a blur, grasping the tentacles engulfing Cameron. The other reached directly into the organism.

As expected, the organism phased into intangibility, but Bruce left his hand in the hazy center and both hands began to blur. A distinct hum could be heard through the room, and then an inhuman screech emanated from the cyborg attacking them. It began transitioning jerkily from solid to phased randomly, jerkily in contrast to its earlier effortless transformations. The screech got progressively louder and then it abruptly ended as the cyborg solidified, cracked, and then disintegrated into a fine, metallic dust and softly settled onto the floor. Cameron, bereft of anything holding her up, fell to the floor with a distinct and ungraceful clunk. She was out cold, her systems having shorted out.

* * *

John woke to a hand shaking him awake.

"Wha?" he muttered before a hand clamped down on his mouth.

"Ssshh!" he heard. As his eyes came into focus, he recognized the shape.

"Bruce?" he asked. "What the hell? What time is it?"

"It is 3:36 a.m. I need you to walk outside with me," came the whispered reply.

"Why?"

"I just want to talk, and I want to do it in private," he said. "It's important," Bruce added in response to the doubt in John's exhausted eyes.

Ten minutes later, John managed to stumble into the dead-of-night darkness, pulling down a hooded sweatshirt with one hand while tucking a pistol in to his waistband with the other.

"Let's go for a walk," suggested Bruce.

Five minutes later, at the bottom of a hill, he said, "I'm leaving you all now. Just wanted to say goodbye."

Raising his eyebrows, John asked, "Really? Time to go finish your mission?"

"No, John," came the reply. "My mission is over."

"But how? You were with us the whole time. When did you have time to complete your mission?"

"Tonight," Bruce said, looking at him. "I did what I came to do on tonight's Elan raid."

"You were sent here to protect me for this one mission alone?" he asked.

Smiling, Bruce said, "Not everything is about you, John. I wasn't sent here by General Connor--you, and I wasn't here to protect you."

"Then what?" insisted John quizzically.

"Do you really think Cameron could have beaten that thing tonight?" asked Bruce. "She couldn't. Not because she isn't skilled, or brave or fierce. Sometimes, it's just not in the cards, you know? But she would have tried until she'd been destroyed."

"This was about Cam?" John asked, dread gripping his heart. "Did Skynet ..."

"No, John. That cyborg is post-Skynet technology. This wasn't about protecting Cameron to ensure mankind's survival. You're still fated to lead the Resistance. But Cameron will be needed _after_ you lead mankind to victory. She will be needed very much," he said.

"I don't understand," John replied, brows furrowing.

"You ensure that mankind survives. But simply by being who she is, Cameron shows the world that it is possible for man and machine to live in harmony. She drafts rights legislation, wins hearts and minds, and works tirelessly to rebuild the world you will save. But," Bruce added. "it is simply by marrying you that she becomes the symbol that will rally open-minded humans and cyborgs alike. In my time, you are known as the Savior, but Cameron is referred to as the great lady who taught the world to love again.

"Not everyone likes that," he noted. "And some of them decided to take a page from Skynet's playbook and send someone back to this time to prevent her accomplishments from coming to pass."

John was silent. "We get married?" he asked. He hadn't ever thought about that kind of thing happening to him, but somehow, he liked the idea of someday being married to her. "Is she happy?" he asked.

Surprised, Bruce said, "Happy?! She was the one who insisted. From what I hear, after you proposed, there were a lot of nasty things said about her, and you were all for just going away with her somewhere remote and spending your life with her. But mom apparently insisted on the whole white dress ceremony and everything. She said she didn't care what anyone else thought, she was going to show the world how she felt about you. I don' think," he added, "that either of you ever regretted the decision."

"Thank you," John finally said. "Thank you for saving her tonight. I wasn't ready to lose her. I don't think I ever will be."

"Eh," Bruce said with a shrug, slapping John on the shoulder. He was suddenly emotional. "I had to come back. After all, if I didn't save Cameron, how would I ever have been born?"

"Oh. ... Wait a minute," John exclaimed. "That's not possible ... she's … and I'm … well, you know," he said. "Born?" he asked stupidly.

"It's been a great week for me, DAD," Bruce said, smiling.

Paling at the name, John stammered, "But ... but how ..."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he said. "Anyway it was a real treat meeting 'Grandma Sarah' -- the person, not the tough-as-nails warrior queen legend. You weren't kidding with all those stories of how bad a cook she was, though!"

John was speechless.

"Unca Derek was right, though. He really was a pain in the ass when he was younger. Don't worry, he mellows out," added Bruce. "Someday." John stayed silent.

"Look, my ride back is here," Bruce said, motioning to a blue glow over the next hill. "So I have to go. Say goodbye to everyone, OK? You can tell them everything -- except I don't think mom's ready to hear the possibility that she can even be a mom just yet, so maybe build up to that," Bruce advised. John nodded.

"I love you, dad," he said as he jogged over the hill and disappeared with a flash of light.


	5. Epilogue

Author's Note:

Consider this an alternate universe tag-on epilogue to "Forever." Out of character, cliched, perhaps just a little bit sexist, but all meant in good fun and in the spirit of comedy. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Cameron Baum was a Terminator, class TOK751.

She outweighed Sarah Connor by nearly 100 pounds, had a specially designed coltan combat chassis, and could outbench the human by a magnitude of 20. She had an advanced CPU with specialized combat algorithms that theoretically could not feel emotion.

But she could. And right now, the emotion she felt was fear. Blood-curdling, bone-freezing, mind-numbing fear.

Cameron had entered the living upon hearing loud crashes and screaming, rushing to ensure that no harm came to John. She found Sarah Connor shrieking obscenities at the top of her lungs, oaths that were physically and biologically impossible and hurling dishware in the general direction of the couch.

Scanning the couch, she found John Connor and Derek Reese, one the future savior of humanity and the other a grizzled soldier who had survived Judgment Day, torture by Skynet, and countless battles. They were … what was the word? She had problems finding the word in her databank because she had not anticipated using it in relation to either one of them.

They were cowering. Behind the couch. Cameron's machine brain came to recognize the emotion she felt as exasperation, even as Derek Reese—of all people!—beckoned her over desperately. "Don't just stand there!" he hissed. "Take cover!"

The unusual nature of his behavior—usually he just called her names—prompted her to consider his command where normally she would have ignored any order he uttered. She ducked and scrambled over. "What is the situation?" she whispered.

"My stupid nephew here used a word that his mother wasn't ready to hear," Derek said, smacking John upside the head.

"Hey! I thought she'd want to hear what Bruce said before he left!" John hissed back, rubbing his head.

"What word did he use?" asked Cameron, thinking it was an expletive. She was always interested in learning new ways to curse.

"Grandma," John admitted.

"Grandma?" asked Cameron, confused.

Derek motioned at Sarah. "Apparently, Bruce admitted before he went back to his own time last night that the screaming harpy over there is his grandmother. Trust me," he added, looking at John. "No woman is ever ready to be called grandma. She might get used to it and even come to love her grandkids. But until then, she's always 'too young' to be a grandmother. Especially someone who's as young as your mother. You moron, you must have the survival instincts of a lemming not to know that!" he said, smacking John again.

Cameron wondered absently if Derek's smacking of John constituted a viable attack that she should respond to, then thought: "If Sarah is Bruce's grandmother, then John must be his father in the future."

"You have a child in the future?" she asked John, jealously. "Who is the mother?"

Changing the stream of her invective, Sarah responded just as John was about to open his mouth and answer, screaming at Cameron: "AND YOU! THIS IS YOUR FAULT, TOO! YOU RAISED A BRATTY KID WHO CALLS ME GRANDMA, SNEAKS OUT IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT AND LAUGHS AT MY COOKING! THAT LITTLE &!#…"

John winced. He had really hoped to break Bruce's news to Cameron a bit more gradually and already she could see Cameron's eyes widening—partly shocked, but perhaps a little bit happy. That all changed when she saw "Grandma" rip the door off a kitchen cabinet with her bare hands and hurl it toward them. The thin plywood was thrown with such force that one corner penetrated the couch and came out the other side.

Eyes wide as the stream of threats continued to crescendo, John Connor, future leader of the Resistance, war hero, and warrior, looked at his uncle and his dearest companion and uttered one word: "Run!"

They ran.

Due to Cameron's perfect recall of everything she saw and heard, she perhaps was most affected by the sight of Sarah Connor's rage. She was sure that 100 years from now, she would still be able to recall, in perfect clarity, the sounds and image of the woman running out her kitchen screaming. "A GUN! I'M GETTING MY GUN! AND MY GRENADES! AND A TIME MACHINE!"


End file.
